Security in the North Caucasus: A Field Report
February 1, 2010
Gregory Shvedov, editor of Caucasian Knot, an online news agency that covers events in southern Russia including the North Caucasus, travels frequently throughout the region and receives and generates daily reports on its conditions. He joined Sarah Mendelson to discuss the implications of the declining security situation in the North Caucasus and what the West and Russia can do about it.
Violence and Impunity in the North Caucasus: Status Report and Policy Recommendations
November 6, 2009
Tanya Lokshina, Deputy Director of the Human Rights Watch office in Moscow, and Elena Milashina, an investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta, along with Dr. Sarah Mendelson, discussed pressing human rights challenges in Russia and particularly the violence and human rights crisis in the North Caucasus. They also discussed policy recommendations for the United States in response to these issues.
Book Discussion: The Angel of Grozny
October 24, 2008
Journalist Asne Seierstad joined Sarah Mendelson at CSIS to discuss her most recent book The Angel of Grozny: Orphans of a Forgotten War, a portrayal of the lives of Chechnya’s children in the wake of the region’s long-standing conflict. Based on Seierstad’s travels in Chechnya, The Angel of Grozny tells the story of the orphans and children who have suffered from Chechnya's forgotten wars. Since 1994, twenty-five thousand children in Chechnya have lost one or both parents.
Letter to Anna Screening
July 31, 2008
CSIS hosted a screening of the documentary Letter to Anna in which Swiss filmmaker Eric Bergkraut examines the life and death of Anna Politkovskaya (30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006), the Russian journalist and human rights activist well known for her reporting on the Chechen conflict.
Berlin, October 2006
Sarah Mendelson convened a meeting at the Bosch Foundation at which she and Ted Gerber (University of Wisconsin-Madison) shared the results of a benchmark survey of 1,200 males, ages 16 to 39 years old, in Dagestan, North Ossetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria, fielded by CSIS in collaboration with the Levada Analytical Center (see Cauldron of Terrorism or Bowl of Kasha? for their findings). Major donors to the North Caucasus region attended the meeting including UN agencies, the European Union, USAID, the World Bank, and senior officials from Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Reports and presentations from the meeting are also available from the following: World Bank (report, pdf.; presentation, pdf.), USAID (presentation, pdf.), and the UN (presentation, pdf.).
Berlin, March 2006
Sarah Mendelson hosted a meeting at the Bosch Foundation at which several producers of human rights reports from the North Caucasus met with report consumers to discuss ways to increase the impact of human rights monitoring.
Berlin, May 2005
Sarah Mendelson and Fiona Hill (the Brookings Institution) jointly organized a unique, high-level meeting with forty practitioners from organizations including the World Bank, the EU, the Council of Europe, and various UN agencies in order to generate ideas for future international involvement in issues facing the North Caucasus. With financial support from the Bosch Foundation, the meeting generated dozens of recommendations, including the need for subsequent meetings and further research.